“I hope this decision helps stop, slow down or halt the Quebec government from moving on [euthanasia] Bill 52,” said EPC executive director Alex Schadenberg. “This decision appears to be saying to Quebec if you go ahead with such a thing it will be struck down in the courts.”
On Oct. 10, the B.C. appeal court overturned a controversial 2012 decision that would have legalized assisted suicide. That decision ruled Canada’s Criminal Code provisions against assisted suicide were unconstitutional and gave Parliament a year to come up with a new law.
The trial judge also granted a constitutional exemption to one of the plaintiffs to obtain an assisted suicide in the interim, but she passed away before the Appeal Court hearing.
In a split decision, the appeal court ruled that the trial judge erred and was bound by a binding precedent to apply the1993 Supreme Court of Canada decision on the Sue Rodriguez case, which upheld that assisted suicide was illegal.
“We’re happy to see the Court of Appeal recognized that the passage of 20 years and a case brought under slightly different circumstances is not sufficient to undo the decision of the Supreme Court in the Rodriguez case,” said EFC general legal counsel Don Hutchinson.
“The court recognizes and acknowledges the conclusion reached by the Supreme Court of Canada that there is no halfway measure that can meet Parliament’s objective to protect those who are vulnerable to the risk of serious abuse in the event assisted suicide were to become legal in Canada,” said Toronto constitutional lawyer and EPC legal counsel Hugh Scher.
Should this decision be appealed to Canada’s highest court, Scher said the Supreme Court will have to decide “whether or not [it] believes it is appropriate to effectively overrule itself in circumstances where Parliament has already considered and rejected the option that would otherwise result in the decision to strike down prohibitions against assisted suicide.”
“We’re pleased the court has recognized the Supremacy of Parliament,” said Scher.
“What the decision recognizes is that only Parliament has the constitutional jurisdiction to determine the legality of assisted suicide and euthanasia,” said Hutchinson, who noted that nine private member’s bills attempting to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide over the past 20 years have failed. The most recent on in 2010 was “soundly defeated in Parliament,” he said.
Vancouver family physician Dr. Will Johnston, EPC-BC Board Chair, noted the BCCA decision said life should be seen in its existential dimension and not freighted down with quality of life considerations under Section 7 of the Charter.
“It seems to us, then, that considerations involving personal autonomy, decision-making and dignity — the very values asserted by both Ms. Rodriguez and the plaintiffs in the case at bar — have consistently been regarded as engaging security of the person and to a lesser extent, liberty,” the BCCA decision says. “Life, on the other hand, has been regarded in the existential sense with, in Sopinka J.’s phrase, ‘deep intrinsic value of its own’; and indeed the majority in Rodriguez referred to the ‘sanctity of life’in a non-religious sense.”
“The Charter is not there to guarantee a certain level of sensation in your life,” said Johnston. “This is very, very helpful.”
“Because of the deeply personal considerations of anyone who would bring this matter to court or give consideration to giving their own life or the life of a loved one, we’re pleased that the court was sensitive in its decision and unanimously recognized in paragraph 280 that those who have only limited ability to enjoy those blessings are no less alive and have no less a right to life than persons who are able bodies and fully competent,” said Hutchinson.
Though the trial judge had argued she could overturn Rodriguez because circumstances have changed in 20 years, Schadenberg pointed out pain management and the ability to relieve suffering have improved a great deal in two decades. Support for euthanasia and assisted suicide is a “radical idea that not only do I have a right to my own body, but I have the right to demand someone else to kill me,” he said. “That’s beyond autonomy.”
“You can’t eliminate the instances things will happen against someone’s consent,” he said.
Though there has always been abuse in medical and legal issues, the difference is that in the past where abuse might cause harm, this is abuse that will cause death.